2v2: Shadow Priest/Rogue vs. Warrior/Druid
SUP THIS IS MY FIRST BLOG POST FOR EXPLAINING ARENAS
I WILL COVER THIS COMPOSITION THIS EVENING:
2v2 — Shadow Priest/Rogue vs. Warrior/Resto Druid
Difficulty
Shadow Priest Gear Level: High — 1/10 (Very easy)
Shadow Priest Gear Level: Medium — 4/10 (Can go either way)
Shadow Priest Gear Level: Low — 8/10 (Difficult)
Gear
Shadow Priest: Gear matters. 400+ resilience and at least 930+ dmg makes this fight a joke. Anything below that will make it significantly harder.
Rogue: The rogue’s gear in this fight doesn’t matter that much. All he’s really there for is CC’ing the druid. The shadow priest will be doing most of the damage.
Warrior: S3 mace hurts. Mace stuns hurt. Good warriors hurt. If he doesn’t have the S3 mace and both the rogue and shadow priest have moderate gear, survivability shouldn’t be a problem in this fight.
Druid: If the druid doesn’t have good gear, SP/Rogue should win pretty much every time.
Strategy
How we go about fighting Druid/Warrior is relatively simple, and I think a lot of SP/Rogue teams lose to them because they’re trying to make it harder than it is. At the beginning, the shadow priest should stay back until the rogue gets into a comfortable position where he can open on the druid no matter where he unstealths to heal his warrior. Most of the time, you want to engage early so make sure your rogue doesn’t waste any time getting into position.
The shadow priest should run in on his/her mount to open on the warrior ASAP. Start off with a SW:P (trinketted) so he doesn’t get a charge off. Lead that into a VT -> VE -> Mind Blast -> SW:D (throw in Devouring Plague there somewhere if you’re undead). Attempt to fake his first pummel… 99% of warriors will Hamstring as soon as they have rage, then pummel since they won’t have enough rage for MS, plus they’ll have an open GCD from whacking at a shield and getting no rage. If you have Hamstring on you, and you’re casting a Mind Blast or Vampiric Touch, fake it to see if he’ll fall for it. If you get pummeled, it’s not a big deal, since shadow priests can take a beating from a solo warrior for a long time anyway, especially if you’re refreshing shield every time Weakened Soul falls off.
Basically, the shadow priest should be treating this like a 1v1 with the warrior. When the druid unstealths, the rogue should be ready to open on him with a Cheap Shot -> Gouge -> Kidney Shot. By the Kidney Shot, he should have to trinket because his warrior is low. As soon as he trinkets, have your rogue Blind him and move to DPS’ing the warrior. If the Disorient DR is up, have him Sap the druid after the blind. If it isn’t, move to the druid and get ready to fear (then sap after the fear if possible, and if the warrior isnt’ dead by then which is extremely unlikely).
Against good teams, their warrior might be able to LOS/Kite both your rogue and you while the druid is CC’ed. If you ever see this at any point, ever, switch to the druid and burst him down. Just make sure Barkskin is dispelled off. After the Kidney Shot during the burst on the druid, time a silence or imp kick or garrote silence (or alternate those. whatever works for your team).
Backtrack a bit now. If the warrior goes on your rogue as soon as the rogue opens on him, it’s not the end of the world. Just pop evasion early, try not to get lolRnG mace stunned, and continue CC’ing the druid as normal. This will also allow the shadow priest to pump out as much damage as he/she wants without risk of being interrupted. If the warrior is on your rogue still, and he can tell he’s going to start getting kited, he should Blind as soon as possible, and communicate for the shadow priest to get ready to fear after the Blind (he should have to trinket it if you’re putting out the dmg you should be putting out).
In summary: Split dps. Shadow priest goes on the warrior. Rogue goes on the druid. Get ready to switch targets at any given moment to react to what the other team is doing.
Positioning
Nagrand Arena: Stay near the pillars. This could potentially give the warrior easy opportunities to LOS you, but it also gives you an opportunity to LOS the warrior from the druid, forcing him to move back and giving you free casts. Besides, you’re the one that can Mind Flay through walls (lol!).
Blade’s Edge Arena: It doesn’t really matter where you position yourself on this map, anywhere is good. There are so many ways to LOS a warrior from the druid here.
Ruins of Lordaeron: Again, there isn’t a ‘bad’ position. However, an ideal position would be in your starting area. Good teams won’t follow you into there, though. You can always lead the warrior back into the area as long as you fight near it, forcing him back. Something you probably want to avoid is going out from the middle tomb.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What do I do when the warrior starts spell reflecting?
A: If he isn’t bothering to LOS, you can fake a cast, then VE right after to eat the spell reflect, then cast for a few more seconds without risk of being reflected. If this isn’t working, you can always switch your DPS target to the druid.
Q: Dispel priority. WAT DO I DO HULP!!
A: Never dispel single or double Lifeblooms unless there’s something else you’re trying to get off. Always dispel rejuvs, regrowths, triple stack lifeblooms, and abolish poison (if you’re both dps’ing the same target.)
Q: When do I shift out and heal against this team?
A: Almost never. If you ever need to shift out to heal, you need to either A.) wait until you get better gear, or B.) revise your strategy to prevent it from getting to that point again. I can’t help with either unfortunately. However, the only time I have ever shifted out to heal against Warrior/Druid is in very rare occasions where I can move out of LOS of the warrior (prevents intercept stun), the warrior is stunned, and I have enough time and mana to heal myself up to a comfortable area. Again, almost never.
WILL EDIT LATER.
yo nice description homie!!!
noxn said this on February 26th, 2008 at 5:52 am
I SEE WHAT U DID THERE
IMAGES said this on February 26th, 2008 at 5:57 am
hrmm
kzh said this on February 26th, 2008 at 6:45 am
what if the warrior is superawesome (and/or human) and finds the rogue before they can use their opener? ohhhhhhh!
Uthadys said this on February 26th, 2008 at 7:29 am
poop.
WONGFEIHONG said this on February 26th, 2008 at 7:35 am
HI LOL
Issey said this on February 26th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Nice guide. One thing the warrior might do is intervene his druid during the blind to prevent a sap. Would you be able to dps down the warrior quickly enough without the extra sap duration? or would that force you to switch to the druid.
WONGFEIHONG said this on February 26th, 2008 at 7:50 am
Are you sure that would put the druid in combat? I think only buffs given to yourself from yourself will lock you in combat (if buffed while in combat), but when buffed by other players, it doesn’t have an effect on that. If it does put the druid in combat, we’ve never encountered that situation, but against pretty much every warrior/druid team we fight, we have a lot of wiggle room, so it would still be relatively easy to recover even without the sap.
noxn said this on February 26th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Yup, it keeps the druid in combat. YAY I MADE A CONTRIBUTING POST. Srsly though, keep up the good work brahhh. represent bg3
WONGFEIHONG said this on February 26th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Hai
subtex said this on February 26th, 2008 at 8:58 am
its not about keeping the druid in combat.
intervene will redirect sap to the warrior. that also stands for cheap shot gauge, kidney, blind.
wrote a more extensive guide on gameriot.
peace
nihilsinedio said this on February 26th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Keep it coming! There are many if’s and buts, but I think everybody gets the picture of how to counter them on the fly.
Couldn’t you post what tactics you use vs rogue/mage. I believe many have trouble vs this particular combo. Including my rogue and I. Thanks for taking time to write this blog and glhf in your arenas.
Regards, Defecto
Defecto said this on February 26th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Hey there noxn!
Nice to see u started blogin. I would have a question to you which is quite off topic. What do you think about the massive QQ-ing about shadow priests. How do u feel, which arguments are correct and which ones are pure QQ. If you have time, write your opinion about this, maybe in a little article i think lots of priest would welcome it!
Thx!
gl with you blog m8
akira said this on February 26th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Awesome stuff
lottoafk said this on February 26th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
We’re only facing druid + warrior teams atm, and we can’t see this tactic working. I’m at 439 resilience, 929 shadowdamage and 11,7k hp buffed. Basically, I just start on the warrior, and the rogue stays put till the druid pops out. Whenever he does, my rogue can’t keep up with the druid because of the intercept stun to my rogue, and the warrior just keeps on spamming piercing howl/hamstring. This way I’m running to those 3 all the time, and the rogue after the druid. I can’t dps properly because of that, my rogue is getting raped, and the warrior’s getting healed.
I don’t get it
Daize said this on February 26th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Finally a NoxnBlog *cheers*
BTW, we usually don’t dps the druid (only CC, fear > blind > silence > whatever) and burn down the warrior in the meantime.
Hoping to read more soon.
Oh and. What do we do against 2 Hunters? 1. DoT 2. RunForYourLife? Well, it works, but… it looks soooo very unclean.
Kilh said this on February 26th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
We went back a bit to our old tactic, which has some pro’s I think.
Rogue saps the warrior, I dispel and we both start nuking on the warrior. The druid pops out, rogue gets to the druid, I stay on the warrior, I silence when able. If the warrior goes to the druid/rogue, I get there as well to fear. Because of the Crippling poison, it’s harder for the warrior to stay on the rogue. Because of more damage done, we need less time to kill the warrior while the druid’s being crowdcontrolled.
Pro’s:
- Wound poison on the warrior
- Warrior is stunned, he can’t just stay on his mount and run away
- Warrior is stunned, I can fully nuke him
- Pressure on the druid so he can’t abolish poison first / cyclone.
Con’s:
If the druid’s close to los, and the warrior intercepts the rogue who’s on the druid now, they’re all far away from the shadowpriest. - On the other hand, this can also happen with your tactic.
Either that, or my rogue just can’t keep on the druid/can’t predict where the druid will pop out.
Looking forward to your comments, and hope you’ll be writing more here! Don’t become a Ming, but keep the good characteristics.
Daize said this on February 26th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
This is the stupidest shit ever you suck so much fuck you omg what the hell.
<3 Tom
Mortre said this on February 26th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
“its not about keeping the druid in combat.
intervene will redirect sap to the warrior. that also stands for cheap shot gauge, kidney, blind.” -nihilsineido
Actually it is mainly about keeping the druid in combat so he cant be sapped, so its not like it would redirect it neway. In the strategy noxn described they would be on the warrior anyway so I doubt the rogue would be cheap shotting/kidney shotting the druid after a blind. Plus the fact that he would probably need combo points, which the warrior would absorb. Hell, intervene even absorbs a normal white hit.
Wongfeihong said this on February 26th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
“Basically, the shadow priest should be treating this like a 1v1 with the warrior. When the druid unstealths, the rogue should be ready to open on him with a Cheap Shot -> Gouge -> Kidney Shot.”
the warrior can intervene during any of them duh
nihilsinedio said this on February 26th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
The warrior won’t need to cause if he’s smart he’ll intercept and keep the rogue off of him. What the thing a warrior cant prevent is a blind. U could say he could intervene that but there’s no way to tell when he wil.
Wongfeihong said this on February 26th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
also even then, the likelihood of his intervene taking the cheap shot, kidney shot, or gouge inbetween all those auto attacks isn’t too high. BUT IT DOES HAPPEN AND WHEN IT DOES ITS PRETTY FUNNY!
Wongfeihong said this on February 26th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
o hi
Conradical said this on February 27th, 2008 at 5:31 am
My rogue and I tried this strat and found we couldn’t get the warrior down. The druid waits out the kidney shot and then just heals the warrior when he comes out of it. Meanwhile, the warrior has been on me this whole time so I’m starting to get pressured hard. I’ve got 477 res and 971 shadow dmg, so I don’t think gear is the issue.
Usually if I get pummeled at all it’s GG. I won’t be able to do enough damage to the warrior during the cheap shot + kidney shot. The only way we’ve had fairly consistent success is by both opening on the warrior, and seeing if he goes sword and board. If he does, we’ll drop off him and go on the druid, else we’ll just continue to kill the druid.
Does anyone have any advice for how I could utilize Noxn’s strat better? Cuz my current strat is only about 60% win.
Lanfear said this on February 28th, 2008 at 8:53 am
well done mate
but pls tell me what does LOS mean?
Hitzzor said this on February 28th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
“Just before your rogue UNSTEALTHS, the shadow priest should run in on his/her mount to open on the warrior ASAP”
What did you mean with that? Go on the warrior after the rogue opens on the warrior or what?
Demiurgi said this on February 29th, 2008 at 5:14 am
I’m not really sure what I meant actually, I was probably typing something, decided to delete it, and I forgot to delete it entirely.
But I fixed it, thanx. <3
Hitzzor, LOS refers to Line of Sight.
noxn said this on February 29th, 2008 at 6:34 am
All righty then! Thanks for all of these strategies to beat 3 most popular combos in reckoning EU
Demiurgi said this on February 29th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
So does anyone else have problems getting the warrior down solo if the druid get HoTs off? Pummel + intercept has been owning my DPS.
Lanfear said this on February 29th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Lanfear,
I’m certainly no pro on this strategy, but we have started using it some more and some having success, so I can relay my experience. Obviously it’s ideal if your rogue can get an opening sap off on the warrior so you have a chance to get a head start. Make sure you have a fresh bubble up right before you open, then you can SW:D at the end of your DOT applications to get some extra burst, then re apply PW:S.
What is working best for me is to open up from max range and move back on the Warrior as you get your DOTS up. The idea being to draw him to you and away from the Druid. Try to get him out of the Druid’s line of sight if possible. Either he will follow you back and get out of the Druids healing range where you can fully DPS or (more likely) he will run back and get on your Rogue. At this point the Warrior will be decently low on HP and the Druid will as well from the Rogue attack. With the Warrior on the Rogue you are free to unload on him making sure to dispel HOTs as needed and help the Rogue with a silence, etc. Next, get a full DOT stack up, PWS your Rogue, and if you can try to get a fear off on the Druid. Once he is feared you should have enough time to finish the warrior as the Druid would have used his trinket when the Rogue was on him.
Anyway, it doesn’t always go perfectly, but if you can make the Warrior choose between chasing you and getting heals you should be able to lessen the damage pressure on and make the strategy work.
Nuni said this on March 1st, 2008 at 3:29 pm
We really like getting a sap off on the warrior. It allows for a worry free VT -> Mindblast -> Swdeath -> shield -> Sw:P, right off the bat, and lets you get closer to the warrior to avoid intercept initially.
We also prefer to Split DPS to force the druid into healing/using swiftmend on himself rather than the warrior. Often we will end up with a situation where both the warrior and druid are at 50%, and we can easily swap and kill one.
skullz said this on March 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 am
450 resilience 940 spell damage
Looks like it is not so easy.
I can solo the warrior without much a difficulty, but my rogue is having difficulties controlling the druid.
So the warrior is always receiving a few heals, and I can’t kill him
Celeblin said this on March 10th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Celeblin,
That’s the exact same problem my team has been running into. The druid eventually gets some heals off. Does anyone know of a video of someone trying this strat cuz I must be missing something.
Personally, we’ve had way more success with both of us opening on the warrior. If our opponents are terribad we just kill the warrior. If the warrior goes sword and board (good teams do this) and isn’t in range of dying, we switch to the druid and kill him.
Lanfear said this on April 1st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Just to update my last post, I’m now having tons of success with splitting against warrior / druid, but here’s the thing that all of these strats don’t mention: While the rogue is stunlocking the druid, you need to walk your way over to the druid, and fear when kidney shot is wearing off. The rogue can gouge also if you need additional time to get there. After the fear, you both whale on the warrior. If the druid doesn’t trinket the fear, your rogue can sap him after the fear if he’s shadowstep, or if he’s close enough by to sprint there. Otherwise just pwn the warrior. By now the warrior should be on his last leg. Obviously if the druid uses trinket on any of those early CCs, blind him and win. If the warrior is still up and the druid hasn’t trinketed, blind anyway (he will trinket this) and silence right after the trinket. Your fear cd should be back up so try to move in position for a fear. Again, your rogue can sprint and gouge over there to give you time to catch the druid.
Getting that initial fear turns this fight into a total cake walk.
Lanfear said this on April 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I dont see anything in this tactic about what will happend if warrior will not follow you to los druid and go for your rogue. I will tell u you are fuked up if he will do that… he will keep hamstring all the time on ur rog he will charge him all the time and you cant kill neither druid or warrior … please dont wrote its easy fight maybe ppl on your relam just dont know how to play
Hemigray said this on April 30th, 2008 at 12:52 pm